The French Connection
by TheFrumpologist
Summary: Hermione and Draco are on a job in Paris. Mission: connect Pansy Parkinson with the plundering of unicorn hairs for use in fashion. All is going according to plan until a game of Monopoly turns into a drinking game, and Hermione is left with all sorts of feelings she'd been trying to squash for months, her very own part to play in Pansy's fashion show, and a murderer on the loose.


**Notes:** This story was written for Dramione Duets on LJ. My partner, Mykesprit, prompted Monopoly, Fashion, and Aurors. I had so much fun with this and I hope you enjoy!

It always started the same. He'd toss his luggage onto the bed and mutter about grunt work and how if he'd just made a single call to the Minister, they'd be staying in much more livable conditions for the duration of their stay. 'May even feel safe enough to use the water,' he'd say every time. 'You do know that it isn't normally the color of mud, don't you?' And then Hermione would gently set her luggage in the wardrobe, remove her jacket and shoes, and she would call for a take away (usually pizza) which would eventually shut Draco's trap.

Alas, once more they were cooped up in a small hovel of a hotel room, despite Draco's various, and increasingly agitated, complaints against living as 'some sort of peasant'. Harry didn't care, though. He ordered the pair of them to pretend that they were a couple of modest means who were on holiday in France as part of a prize package won over the radio. As muggles. If it wasn't bad enough for Draco that they were living like the middle class, it was even worse that he'd been essentially stripped of his magic and therefore was supremely out of his element. It didn't bother Hermione, of course. She'd spent almost half her life as a simple muggle. She didn't need magic and house elves to ensure her livelihood.

Thankfully, the take away arrived just over a quarter of an hour after she phoned and once she had a large veggie pizza in front of Draco, he did indeed shut his mouth. Of course, it took him at least three minutes of grumbling about her having to pay the man due to her knowledge of muggle money. And she'd silenced him with a 'well, if you'd bother to learn, you could pay to your heart's content.'

After he inhaled the pizza, they would sit and complain about feeling full. And then the silence would set in until neither of them could bear it any longer. Their friendship was just blooming. Months ago, they couldn't even sit in the same room together but after so many undercover jobs in shoddy hotel rooms, they'd formed a strange, albeit quiet, friendship. Now she could truly see how much Draco changed from their school days only years before. He was handsome, even, in a rogue blonde sort of way, with stubble lining his chin and a jaw so sharp it could have been cut by diamonds.

She'd never tell him that, of course. God, Hermione would off herself before she ever even hinted that perhaps, possibly, she might find him the tiniest bit attractive. It wasn't just his looks, though. He really was quite clever and, despite how often she'd nagged him about learning the muggle culture for the job, he was intense about his protection of muggles. It was strange and endearing and, dammit, it really did stoke some long-hidden desire inside of her. Probably helped that he was fit as hell, too.

"You're doing that thing where you stare at me again, Granger." Draco pressed his back against the sofa and drew his foot up to rest on the edge and then rested his elbow on his bent knee. He raised a pale brow as he watched her blush and stare down at the empty pizza box. "We're not having a repeat of bloody Tokyo, okay."

"Tokyo was entirely your fault!" she protested loudly. Gone was the attraction and it was replaced by ire. "You lost track of the Minister, not me!"

"Um, not quite what happened," he replied just as annoyed. "All of that staring at my backside distracted you and, _hey_ , why do you always pinch me?"

He swatted her hand away from the back of his arm. A notched formed between her brows, the wings just the smallest bit raised above her eyes. Always staring at him, always pinching him. He was so bloody arrogant.

She told him so. "You're honestly the most insufferable person I've ever met in my entire life."

He smiled at her. It was a crooked thing and didn't quite reach his eyes, but it was there. "Obviously you're in love with me."

"In…" she spluttered and then stood suddenly. There was no arguing with him when he was like this, so she busied herself with removing the pizza box and tidying the small table they were afforded in the room.

"Struck a nerve, then?" He was right behind her. "We've been dancing around this issue for weeks now, Granger. If we just… banged one out-"

She spun around and glared at him with her hands on her hips. The pizza box was on the floor at her feet and she wanted to pummel him for even bothering to glance down at it. "We are _not_ going to just _bang one out_. God, Draco, what the hell is your problem? We're barely friends and you're just making up all these make believe feelings between us and-"

His hands were on her shoulders and his face was so close to hers that she was immediately captured in his gray eyes. She couldn't move even if she wanted to. Shite. Draco didn't move again, just held her there and stared into her eyes. When she stopped breathing raggedly and her face was no longer tinged pink, his lips lifted at the corners. He couldn't feel her heart in her throat, though, right? And his hands were far removed from where hers were rubbing their clamminess off on her denims. Could he see it? See her attraction to him? No, that was entirely ridiculous.

"Let's play," he said after a few more moments of silence. His hands were gone and his face was no longer the only thing in her field of vision. "Assume you brought the sodding thing, yeah?"

He walked away from her and sat back on the sofa, waiting. She watched him and it took her far too long to regain her bearings. She opened her mouth, snapped it closed, took a step forward, and then finally turned around to grab the game from her luggage.

Monopoly.

It was Harry's idea of a team building exercise during Draco's first week as an auror. Hermione nearly killed him before Harry called an end to the game with Draco the victor. And the recipient of several death threats, most of which were from Hermione. Harry should have known better than to pit the two of them against each other; each were ultra-competitive by nature and once hotels started going up around the board, no one else stood a chance. Not until Malfoy finally landed on Mayfair and built hotels and practically trapped her along the last lane between Go to Jail and Pass Go. She actually flipped the board over and sent pieces flying in all directions. Her only lament was that nothing hit Malfoy in the eye.

But now, months later, it was turning into one of her favorite pastimes. No one else understood her competitive nature quite like Malfoy. He'd driven her around the bend winning every single game they'd played. He seemed to like it – winning in particular, she wasn't quite sure it had anything to do with the game. He'd tell her time and time again that he was good at it because he was raised to become a business man like his father and Monopoly was, at its bare bones, a game of business decisions.

As she carried the ragged cardboard box over to their small table, Hermione watched as Draco made himself comfortable. Shoes removed, jumper off and leaving him in just a plain white tee shirt, taking up the whole sofa to himself. She grabbed the desk chair on her way over and sat across from him at the table.

"I'll be Gringott's," Draco said as she started removing all the little pieces from the box.

She already figured this and pushed the plastic money holder in his direction. Honestly, she hated keeping track of the money and the _one_ time she'd been the bank, Draco accused her of cheating. So, she kept losing fair and square. Though, she did make it a habit to remind him that the muggle bank wasn't called Gringott's. He pointedly ignored her.

"Thimble and top hat?" she asked as she sorted through the small, metal tokens. He nodded and she placed them on the Go square. "Maybe we should try another game sometime. Like, Life or Trouble."

"Are muggles always so simple?" Draco asked with a laugh. "Let me guess, in Life, you have a spinner that steers you through all of your decisions so that you don't get to make any choices yourself?"

Hermione laughed. Accurate, at any rate.

"No thanks," he said at her reaction. "Had enough of that for one lifetime. No one needs to tell me that I'll be married with an heir and settled into my father's business. I've already told father where he can stuff that pipe dream."

She stared at him, because what else was she supposed to do? He never spoke of his home life, not really. Sometimes, he'd mention things his mum would cook or read, but he very rarely went into so many details. She didn't know how to segue the conversation, so Hermione cleared her throat and held out her hand for the money that Draco was passing to her.

"Did Potter happen to mention any other details of the case?" He fell into their usual, comfortable discussion of the case. Safe ground for both of them. "The only thing his letter said to me was that there was illegal poaching that was being done to imbibe muggle attire with magical creatures. No names, no further detail. I assume you've discussed it with him at length?"

Hermione bit her lip. So, they'd finally gotten around to it. She didn't really want to have the conversation and she'd told Harry so vehemently as they discussed it in detail earlier that afternoon. Malfoy would be angry for having it kept from him and she was worried he'd simply leave her alone in France to solve it on her own.

"That bad, then?" Draco rolled his die – a six, of course – and gestured for her to do the same.

She rolled it – a two, go figure – and waited for him to take his first turn. "Harry received an anonymous tip that Pansy Parkinson is stealing unicorn hair to use in her new Spring muggle line."

Draco scoffed and rolled a six. "Not likely. Too dirty for her. Maybe Potter's lost his touch sorting through all these anonymous tips."

She landed on the tax square and immediately lost money. Through a groan, she told him, "Harry's dead sure that something is happening here this weekend. It's a muggle show, Malfoy. And if Pansy is using magical creatures around the muggles, that's a Class C Misdemeanor against a muggle. It's not a small-"

"Granger," Draco sighed as he rolled again and bought another space, "Pansy doesn't really fucking care if there's muggles around. She's going to create the best bloody piece of clothing she can. But she's not stupid, either. She wouldn't steal unicorn hairs to do it."

"When's the last time you saw Parkinson?" She grabbed a Community Chest card and paid the bank fifty quid.

"A year or so ago." He shrugged and moved his top hat token another six spots. "She was heading for Milan and considering ending her career on a high. Said she wanted to open a shop in Diagon and start settling down with Marcus."

"And you don't think it's strange that a successful fashionista in her early twenties wants to retire?" Hermione raised her eyebrow and bought a square finally. "I'm just saying, I understand why Harry is concerned, is all."

"We're not all bloody Death Eaters trying to end the world, alright. There's no way she's stealing pieces of magical creatures. She's not that stupid."

Hermione took a deep breath. She could tell he was over the discussion and she tried to steer them away from it. If it turned out they had to arrest Pansy, then Hermione would handle it.

"We'll need a glamour so that she doesn't recognize us," she said after a few moments of moving their tokens around the board. "If she sees us, she'll know what's happening."

"Unless she didn't do anything wrong and then she won't have any idea what we're doing there together." Draco got sent to Jail.

"Then why even pretend to be muggles at all?" Hermione asked him and felt a small thrill that she'd managed to render him silent for a moment. But, the silence didn't last too long and neither did her pride.

"Because Potter enjoys fucking with me," he ventured as he landed on Park Lane. _Dammit._ "Or because we happen to be in the most saturated muggle city in Europe?"

She sighed. Of course. "Can you hand me my 200, please?"

He did. "Granger, this is probably going to be the easiest case we've had to date. Potter's wrong about this. I can feel it."

She didn't believe him, but she didn't want to argue about it so she nodded her head non-committedly and continued playing the game while making small talk, which Draco hated. The weather, the ministry regulations coming down the line, Hogwarts news, and discussing her friends was entirely off limits as interesting and stimulating conversation.

"Are you sure we can't spell this board into something more… wizard?" Draco asked sometime later as houses started appearing around the board. "Don't you ever get bored of seeing the same old things?"

She smiled down at Mayfair only five squares away and closed her eyes as she threw the dice onto the board. Four. Bloody hell. Super tax _again_. "Sometimes I think maybe we should play another game like Life or Trouble."

"As I've said…" he shook his head. "We could play wizarding games, you know?"

"I refuse to play Exploding Snap. It's disgusting." She made a face and Draco chuckled at her.

"Only because you lose often."

"Because you distract me!"

"About that," he said with a slight purr in his voice. "Let's have a beverage. I brought the firewhiskey."

"We have a job, Draco," she warned him sternly, though she knew it was for nothing. It always ended this way. "Alright, just one then."

It was strange seeing him move about without summoning things to him and using magic to do even the simplest of tasks. She took the opportunity to study the way his body moved, muscles visible under the form fitting tee shirt and denims that really hugged his slim waist. She wondered, sometimes, if he ever looked at her like this when she wasn't looking and then decided that she was positively ridiculous for even bothering to entertain the idea. As soon as the paper cup of firewhiskey was in her hand, she tipped the entire contents down her throat. The burn wasn't as bad as the first time she'd drank with him, but it still tingled all the way down to her belly.

He raised an eyebrow and refilled her cup. Offering her a tip of his own cup, he smiled as his lips wrapped over the lid of it and took it down in one sip. "Another!"

Draco repeated this five times with his cup and hers and then set the bottle down beside the bank and insisted that they continue with a drinking game.

"Every time you land on one of my hotels, you can either pay me the full rent or you can take a full shot." He pointed at the cup and at the board as he spoke, as if that was going to help his rules to the game he made up.

"Draco." Hermione's eyes were wide as she stared at the board covered in hotels and the small amount of money she had left in her pile. "You've stacked your drinking game against me!"

He full-on grinned at her and her heart stopped. That had to be the firewhiskey, surely. Her cheeks were hot. This was entering a very different and new territory. Was he… hoping she'd get drunk? Because, honestly, the number of shots he'd have to take versus how many she'd have to take was ridiculously unfair.

"See, I landed on your hotel," he told her as he took his turn without bothering to confirm he'd stacked the game against her. "Instead of paying you from my piles of money, I'm going to take a shot."

"If the point of your game is to just continue to drink, we don't need Monopoly for that." Hermione couldn't help the small laugh that left her as he choked back more whiskey. She was relatively sure he'd be passed out before the night got away from them at the rate he was going. Maybe she would be, too.

"Fine. Spoil sport." He swigged another shot from the bottle directly and thrust it at her. "I'll win anyway, we can stop playing the game."

"Hey, I wasn't out of the game yet. Mayfair is still up for grabs!" She gestured to the board where she was, once again, five paces away from Mayfair. She rolled a six and her face fell. "Bugger."

Draco, however, tossed the dice and rolled a nine, landing him directly onto Mayfair. She growled as he grinned and when she made to stand up, he covered his face. Mocking her for the one time she flung pieces all over the room.

"How the hell do you keep doing that?" Hermione demanded as she ripped the whiskey from his hand. She chugged back a burning swig and her eyes watered. "Every. Single. Time. You've gotten Mayfair."

He crooked his finger at her, as if to tell her a secret. She walked around the table and stood towering over him with her hands on her hips. He smiled, shook his head, and gestured again for her to come closer. She sighed and sat down next to him. Waiting, expectant. He, much to her fury, made one last attempt to get her close and so she brought her face close to his so that he could whisper in her ear.

What she didn't expect was that his hand would find its way around her neck and, as his lips pressed against her ear to whisper his secret, Hermione's insides coiled like a spring. "Do you want to know my secret, Granger?"

She gulped. Couldn't help it. Maybe she needed another drink, actually. Did she really care about his secret now, like this, with his lips breathing warm, tingling air against the shell of her ear? Of course she did, she reasoned; he did always win the damn game after all. Hermione nodded, a small, tight motion that made his fingers move against the nape of her neck.

He chuckled as if he could sense her discomfort. "I cheat."

Draco caught her scandalized gasp with his lips and wasted exactly zero time deepening the kiss. She wrapped her hands into his hair and she twisted her fingers into it so that she could hold him tight against her. She was fuming, furious that she'd never noticed him cheating during the game but with the firewhiskey making her heady and the way he was touching her and snogging her, Hermione couldn't push him away. Instead, she showed him how angry she was by pushing back against him just as hard. When she ended up straddling his lap, Draco ran his hand along the band of her denims and then lifted her shirt as he trailed a path with his fingers up her spine. In no time at all, he had her shirt off and his hands clenching her hips as she ground their covered bodies against one another.

"Merlin, had I known you'd react like this, I'd have told you about the cheating months ago," he chuckled against her neck before sucking and nibbling on a bit of sensitive flesh.

She groaned, both in anger and in something akin to pleasure. "You're a git."

He smiled against her skin and nipped at her again as she reached down and pulled his white shirt up and over his head. Draco grabbed her around the waist and stood suddenly, so she wrapped her legs around his body and allowed him to carry her until his knees hit the bed and they fell on top of the quilted comforter. Hermione reached down and unbuttoned her jeans while he did the same and in no time at all they were pressed together entirely naked.

She was aware, of course, that there was a lot of firewhiskey in a short amount of time to thank for this, but also the heat between them for months and months as they competed against each other to win a stupid board game finally caused Hermione to snap.

"This is probably a very bad idea," she told Draco as he pushed her legs apart and crawled up her body.

"Mmhm," he agreed while pressing kisses to her skin in any spot that he could reach. "Absolutely terrible idea. Someone should tip off Potter that we have a horrible, no good situation here."

Hermione laughed, unable to stop herself, and arched her back as he took one of her dusky nipples into his mouth. They stopped talking then, too wrapped up in the moment to bother trying to outwit one another as usual. Hermione's hands traveled along the tense muscles at Draco's back and sides, digging her fingers into the sinewy flesh as she moved lower and lower. Draco seemed to have his hands and mouth everywhere at once and it irked her something fierce when she'd moan his name or gasp out a pleasured ' _God'_ and he'd respond with a smile against her body. Once, though, he thrust against her thigh and then it all became very real what they were about to do. There was no denying the effect she'd had on him nor that he was attempting to compensate for any unfortunate length issues.

"We can't use a spell," Hermione whispered against his lips as he helped push her legs apart and up to accommodate his body kneeling between them. "I don't have a potion."

"We don't need-"

Hermione stopped moving completely and pushed herself back into the mattress so that she could look at Draco. A sheen of sweat on his brow and his eyes squeezed shut as if he knew exactly what she was about to say. Pre-wince.

"Oh like hell we don't need anything, Malfoy," she demanded angrily. "I'm not carrying around your spawn because we had a bit of firewhiskey one night on the job."

"I know, I know," he groaned and dropped his forehead onto her shoulder. "How about just one, tiny spell. No one will ever know."

His strained voice lit a fire inside of her. He really wanted this. Like, really, really wanted this. She wondered, vaguely, how long he'd been thinking about this. Probably since Tokyo; she hadn't been the only one staring, after all.

"Come on, Hermione," he pleaded with her and placed a long, open-mouthed kiss against her neck. "Just one small contraception spell and no one will ever find out we broke the rules."

Hermione's hips moved as he ground against her and she sighed. "Okay, but just this once, Draco, because it'll leave a magical imprint and then we'll be buggered for the case."

He smiled triumphantly and though he jumped away from her, he was back so quickly she didn't even have a chance to catch her breath. He uttered the spell and chucked his wand to the side and resumed the wondrous things he'd been doing before with his hands.

"I knew you'd feel this good," he whispered on her collarbone as he pressed himself closer to her. He was lined up perfectly, only one small barrier to go and their relationship would be changed forever. "I can't wait to feel you tighten around my c-"

A bright, blue light enveloped the room and both Draco and Hermione sprung apart to watch a beautiful fox patronus enter their hotel room and completely destroy the mood. Draco paled and Hermione glanced curiously between him and the fox.

"Draco, help!" It was Pansy's voice and she sounded desperate and scared. "I think someone's trying to kill me, Draco. Please. Please help me!"

The sexually charged atmosphere evaporated completely. She no longer felt anything except dread in her stomach. It sounded real, Pansy's plea for Draco to help, and if his tense expression was anything to go by, he believed it was real as well. For a moment, she was thankful that they cast the charm for contraception, because otherwise Pansy's message might not have found them.

She placed her hand on his shoulder to try and move him off of the bed. "Let's get dressed and go find her. She's in Paris for the show, yeah? Maybe she's staying in a hotel nearby?"

Draco nodded and quick as he moved to grab his wand, he was dressed with his shoes on, looking just as put together as he was when they first strolled into the room hours ago. Really, if she wasn't so damn worried about Pansy, she'd be furious that he could be so put together with zero effort. He waited for her patiently as she tried to tame her wild curls with a band and squeezed herself back into her denims. As soon as she was respectable, he ran for the door.

She walked behind him at a brisk pace as they made their way down the stairwell. Neither of them wanted to wait for the elevator and risk losing more time.

"I had no idea that Pansy could produce a patronus," Hermione said conversationally, as she took the steps nearly two at a time.

Draco laughed a short, and not at all humorous, thing. "She's not evil, Granger. She's a bitch, sure, but there's a heart buried in there somewhere."

Hermione had the decency to appear moderately shameful of assuming Pansy wouldn't be able to cast a patronus, but really, she did question most formerly dark wizards' ability to do such a thing. She wouldn't have believed that Draco could cast one had she not witnessed it on several occasions.

"Where would Pansy be in France?" Hermione asked to change the subject. "I assume she wouldn't stay anywhere muggle."

"No," he said shortly as they exited the hotel. Draco steered her toward an alley and pulled her into the dark. "She'll be at La Beauté de la Ville. Wizard Only."

Of course. Pansy was first and foremost, wealthy, and secondly a proud pureblood witch. She would never 'slum it' as Draco had once put it. She didn't have a chance to press him for more details as he grabbed her hand, stepped forward, and turned on the spot.

Side-along apparation was something she'd never get used to. It was her least favorite method of travel, right behind broomstick and portkey. She steadied herself on Draco's shoulder as they hit the ground inside the hotel entrance. He probably didn't mean to shake her off, but he did anyway. Hermione watched as he accosted the staff about where his friend was holed up, but she knew better.

She raised her wand to her lips, uttered the incantation for her patronus, and whispered, "We're in the lobby."

Her otter took off at full speed, swimming through the air and out of sight. Draco didn't notice it and so when Hermione came up behind him and placed her hand on his shoulder, he spun around with a crazed look in his eye. She approached the counter of the hotel and requested a bottled sober-up potion. She and Draco both downed their phials in a second.

"I sent her a message," she told him simply and watched the color appear back in his cheeks. "She's fine, Draco. We're here for her."

"How did this turn into 'help me, they're going to kill me' from Potter's anonymous tip about unicorn hair?" He kicked the statue he'd been standing next to and it cursed at him, calling him something that even Hermione's French couldn't translate. Draco sneered at the statue and sighed.

"I'm not sure. All I know is that Harry was told she was stealing unicorn hairs for her upcoming fashion show in Paris and that we'd need to be out this way to catch her in the act. Class-"

"Yes, Granger. Class C Misdemeanors for unlawful use of magical beast elements."

Both Draco and Hermione turned on the spot to find Pansy staring back at them. She wore wide, dark sunglasses, black fringe hung just over the top of them, and thick black and white striped dress. She looked like something out of an old-time movie. Classic, almost. Draco rushed her and wrapped his arms around her neck in a hug.

"Wait!" Hermione called to draw their attention and then blushed when they both peered at her with some strange Slytherin similarity. Eyes narrowed, lips tight, posture rigid. What the hell; did she travel back to 1997? "I only meant, how did you know that we were here about the Class C Misdemeanors?"

Draco backed away from Pansy after kissing her on the cheek and she waved her hand around vaguely as if that was the best explanation. The aurors stared at her, waiting, and she finally smiled.

"Well, to be completely honest, and now, Granger, I don't want you to go on losing your shit over this, okay, because really, it's nothing," Pansy's hand flitted around her head as she tried to blow off the whole situation and it make the hairs at the back of Hermione's neck rise. It was the feeling she was used to right before walking into a trap. "I might have, by use of my very Slytherin wiles, owled the anonymous tip post at the ministry in order to create buzz around my show."

Hermione opened her mouth to verbally assault the witch, but Draco beat her to it. "You did _what_? Why on earth would you get Granger and me sent all the way here for something you _know_ is a farce?"

"Well I didn't know Potter would go all Boy Who Lived on a tip about unicorn hair, for Merlin's sake. What is actually wrong with that bloke?" Pansy, strangely, appeared more affronted that someone believed her tale and sent law enforcement to help, than she did about Draco's tone of voice. Hermione wondered if Draco just inspired this type of snark in people he interacted with daily. "Honestly, I'm glad you're here at any rate. Like I said, I think someone's trying to kill me."

The way she said it, so blasé and not at all the terrified sound that it was in her patronus had Hermione reeling. "You sounded rather frightened in your message," she tried carefully, not wanting to insinuate that the girl had overreacted to something, obviously. "Who do you think is trying to kill you?"

She lifted her sunglasses off of her face – it _was_ nighttime, after all, Hermione thought as she rolled her eyes – and leveled a gaze at Hermione. She wasted all of three seconds on that look before she let her eyes move to Draco and then her whole guise shattered.

"I was finishing up my new nostalgia line, the Classic Black Heiress," she said as if anyone would actually know what the hell she was talking about, "and I started receiving these owl messages. They started out okay enough, complimenting me on style and color choices, and then this last message, well…"

She held it out for Draco to take. He read it slowly. "I'm going to kill you in Paris."

Hermione glanced up at Pansy in time with Draco. She tried to be as gentle as possible. "That's… it? I mean, sure, they pretty much say here that they're going to kill you. But they went from compliments to death threats that quickly?"

Draco folded the paper. "I'm keeping this. We have to alert the French Ministry and get their MLE here. We'll need to close the event, Pans, I'm sorry. _No, don't you bloody cry_."

She did, in earnest, with her sunglasses back over her eyes. "I… you _can't_ cancel the show, Draco. I've worked so hard, _like a house elf-_ "

Hermione opened her mouth and Draco immediately glared her into silence.

"Pansy, we have to take every precaution for your safety, and the safety of everyone attending the show tomorrow. We can't very well allow it to continue."

"What if you two just follow me everywhere? You know, have Potter assign you as my, I don't know," she gestured between them as if they provided any help whatsoever, "personal detail."

Hermione gaped. "You want us to just… be your personal security? Like your bodyguards?"

"Oh, I quite like the sound of that, actually." Her lips parted in a brilliant, white smile. "You know, that's a lucrative business idea, Granger. Aren't you clever?"

She had a feeling that the noise Draco was making was laughter, but she was too blown away that Pansy Parkinson a) told her she had a good idea, b) called her clever, and c) expected them to just follow her around for the whole bloody day. Stronger curse words weren't quite enough to describe exactly what it was she felt.

"So, you'll do it?" Pansy didn't bother to pose the question to Hermione, instead her simpering smile was locked on Draco and he nodded. Of course he did, the great git. "Oh, wonderful! Would you two like to stay in my suite tonight, then? You can bunk on the settee."

And that's how they found themselves after several hours of listening to Pansy waffle on endlessly about high end fashion, the gurus of the underground fabric world, the subtle art of creating a magical masterpiece, and, the thing that ultimately drove Hermione to threatening the other woman with the business end of an itchy wand: hair care for witches.

The settee was, thankfully, a sofa bed and Hermione cast an engorgement charm on it immediately upon seeing its small frame. She needed no repeat of her and Draco's hot moment earlier in their own hotel room. She fluffed a line of pillows and placed them between their two bodies, extinguished the light and then she lay awake and listened to Draco's light snoring until she finally, fitfully, fell asleep.

She woke to the sun streaming through the large window, the blackout curtains were thrown wide open while a cheerful Pansy Parkinson strolled around the room humming an upbeat tune that Hermione swore she'd heard before on the WWN. As she stirred, something warm pressed into her side and, assuming that it was a pillow, Hermione snuggled into it and buried her chin against the soft cotton. Until, of course, she realized that the soft cotton was, in fact, not attached to a pillow but to a very much awake and staring at her with raised eyebrows Draco Malfoy.

To say she moved away from him quickly didn't do her reflexes justice. She was standing before she registered that her shirt dangled a smidge too low and revealed a bit more cleavage than she'd ever intended. If possible, Draco's eyebrows raised even further. His gaze darkened as she pulled the fabric back over her shoulder and spun on her heel to the loo. Forget all that nonsense; she didn't have time for it.

Blokes, honestly. Here he was with his best friend being threatened with murder and the first thing he does upon waking is lust after her half-exposed breast.

She sighed as she started the water and tried to ignore their voices in the next room.

"I just think that maybe you're going about it all wrong, Draco."

"I'm not going about anything. We had a moment, you ruined it, it's over forever."

Pansy's laughter filled the hotel room as Hermione stepped under the spray of the shower. "Oh, Draco, you're positively hopeless. The girl is head over heels for you."

Whatever Draco said after that was drowned out by the steady thrum of the shower and Hermione thanked the peace and quiet. Who was Pansy to know how she felt for Draco? Sure, she'd been having these intense feelings for him for a little while now, but he was her partner at work and he was the bane of her existence otherwise. He had his reputation, one that she knew too well within the office, and even worse, they'd been _thisclose_ to actually acting on the heat that'd been building between them for months, and she actually hated the idea that it would have been the product of firewhiskey rather than a sober decision made by two responsible adults.

Of course, she wasn't arguing at the time either.

Point was, she was bloody confused.

A knock on the door interrupted the peace she'd found in the solitude of the shower.

"Granger." Of course it was Malfoy. He sounded agitated. Hermione was pleased to know that Parkinson had that effect on a number of people. "I know for a fact that you don't take longer than ten minutes in the shower. Some of us need to groom before attending a high end fashion show."

She rolled her eyes. The ponce. "I'll be out in a minute."

She shut off the water and stepped out of the shower into the steam-filled bathroom. Her wand was in the other room, so there'd be no use drying her hair with it. She'd just have to go about like a wet dog until she could find it. She sighed. Her clothes were all at the other damn hotel, too.

"Er, Draco?" she chewed on her bottom lip and put her head against the door. "Could you, possibly, nip to our hotel room and grab my clothes for today?"

She could practically feel the door vibrate with his laughter and she scowled at the door. "Why not just have Pansy whip something up for you?"

Her eyes went wide. "Oh, no, I think I'd rather wear something comf-"

"I have just the thing, Hermione!" Pansy's excited squeal carried as she padded loudly through the rest of the hotel and Hermione sighed.

"May as well just give up, love." Draco chuckled again. "You've just made her millennia."

"Bugger off, Draco."

"Get out of the loo, Granger."

"Wash your hair with an augmenti charm."

"Go to the event naked."

"Git." Hermione swung the door open and gripped her towel tight around her body. "You're insufferable and I swear when we get back to headquarters, I'm going to request a transfer."

"You've said that the last six jobs we've gone on," he reminded her with a smirk. "I think you like me."

He was close to her. Too close. She could count his eyelashes if she cared to try. She was unnerved. Even after their almost-sex the night before, being this close, this intimately near to him, made something in her stomach coil and release like the warmth of the sun all around her body.

She did the only thing she could.

"Well, duh," she answered him simply, and then pressed forward until he moved out of her way.

Hermione could feel his eyes watching as she stormed through the hotel to Pansy's room, and she didn't dare look back where he might see the blush on her cheeks and the vulnerability in her eyes.

When she slammed Pansy's door behind her, Pansy jumped and spun around with the most exquisite black dress Hermione had ever laid eyes on. It was inlaid with emerald silk underneath a sheath of black lace, and looked as though it was modified to be less modest from a historical time period. It was, despite how often Hermione made fun of Pansy's love of fashion, absolutely stunning.

"Oh no." Hermione held up her hands as Pansy approached her with the dress. "Oh, no, no, no, no."

Pansy ignored her. "As my bodyguard, it's important that you're as close to me as possible, no?"

Hermione glanced back to the door and calculated how quickly she'd need to run from the room and down to the lobby in order to apparate before Pansy could alert Draco to her desertion. She'd need five minutes. Fewer if the lifts worked. More if she had to haul herself down the stairs in naught but a towel around her body.

"You'll be close to me. You'll get to scope out the audience without appearing too conspicuous. It's actually quite brilliant. I'm very clever." Pansy held the dress up again and then used her wand to levitate it close to Hermione's body. In a quick movement, she ripped Hermione's towel away and ignored her gasp and indignant sputtering. "You have a very nice body, Hermione. It'll only take a moment for me to-"

Pansy waved her wand around, muttering spells and using non-verbal charms as she worked. It took a grand total of five minutes for the dress to be snuggly wrapped around Hermione's frame, complete with a set of strappy black shoes. Pansy summoned her full length mirror and forced Hermione to look at herself.

The mirror said what Hermione was thinking, almost verbatim. "Oh my word, dear, you look like royalty!"

Against every aggravated nerve in her body, Hermione spun part way to the side and admired the way that the fabric clung to her curves. She hated to admit it, but Pansy was right – it really did suit her, and she'd be able to do her job better by actually being allowed on the stage. She hated this idea. Hated it, hated it, hated it.

"While you come to terms with my being right," Pansy's laughter tinkered as she strolled out of the room, "I'll update Draco on our plan for today."

And that is exactly how Hermione found herself on stage, walking none-too-daintily in a pair of heels she had no business wearing, striking what she really hoped was an appropriate pose on the runway. Draco, to his credit, didn't utter a single word against the fancy dress she was forced into and instead remained very quiet as they apparated to the backstage area of the show. Every once in a while, he'd placed his hand on the small of her back to guide her in different areas, but he made no comment as to the state of her dress, good or bad.

Before she went on stage, he'd whispered in her ear that he'd scope out the crowd on the ground, but where she saw him from the stage, it didn't look like has watching much of anything going on around him. His eyes were on her and they were so exquisitely dark against the lights that were shining in her eyes that she could have mistaken him for someone else. He watched her like a lion might leer at a gazelle. Ready to pounce. It made her insides flutter strangely. She liked it.

Her lips spread into a large grin as he shifted his belt.

She liked it a lot.

She didn't have time to dwell too much on it, however. Someone caught her attention to Draco's left. A hooded figure with pale skin and oh, bugger, a wand! Hermione squealed and tried her best to jut her chin out towards Draco's left. He didn't take any notice. She couldn't very well pull her wand out in front of all the muggles in attendance, so she scurried off of the stage, less lady-like than she'd been on her walk out, and tried desperately to find Pansy.

"He's here. In the audience." Hermione whispered in a rush as she tried to find where the blasted hell Pansy had stored her wand under all the material. "You have to go, Pansy. Hide."

Pansy scoffed. "Like hell I will, Hermione."

And then she was off to the curtain, decked out in a bright red number, and walked the catwalk all on her own. Hermione chased after her, finally pulling her wand free from an elastic band around her hip, and arrived just in time. The wizard with the wand had it raised, Draco paying no attention whatsoever, and aimed it straight at Pansy's chest. Hermione ran forward, her heel catching on the back of the other shoe, and flung forward into Pansy. The pair went straight to the ground, but not before a bright orange jet of light hit Hermione right in the hip.

Hermione blacked out immediately and when she awoke, she was surrounded by whirring machines and an awful lot of white. Her eyes opened slowly, blinking, and bleary. Like she'd been staring at the sun for too long and then looked through a kaleidoscope. It took several seconds for her vision to clear and then she saw a familiar figure sitting in the chair next to where she was laying.

Her words were more of a groan against a scratchy throat. She licked her lips trying to wet them and accepted when he stood and pressed a straw to her lips. She sucked down a small sip of water and tried again. "What happened? Is Pansy safe? Did you catch-"

Draco shoved the straw back into her lips and smirked when she scowled at him. "Pansy is safe, thanks to you," he said softly. "She's now decided against retirement because the world knows her name on a grand scale and she wants to do a fashion line dedicated to 'making Granger look less of a trainwreck.'"

Hermione choked a laugh while swallowing and tried to push herself up. She finally glanced around and noticed that she was in hospital. "Oh."

"Yeah, oh," he said less casually than before. "You took a modified stun from a very pissed off fashion mogul that was jealous of Pansy's budding talent."

"Which fashion mogul?" Hermione asked, placing her hands together in her lap. Draco didn't appear to banged up. A slight cut on his jaw that was mostly hidden in the stubble on his face. "Was it someone she knew?"

"Worse. It was her idol." Draco shook his head and scooted her legs over to make room for himself on her cot. "Some French Veela that faked her death half a century ago so that she could go on producing magical fashion without muggle eyes."

Hermione nodded. "And is she in custody?"

Draco raised his chin. "Potter has her in for questioning now. He can't get much out of her, poor bloke. I think his wife is going to enjoy her evening later."

Hermione laughed. Ginny had a rather bad experience with veela women. This probably wasn't going to help. "How did you escape her charms, then?"

"Oh, it wasn't me that took her down." Draco frowned. "Pansy was so angry about the whole thing that she tackled the woman to the ground the old muggle way. She was actually pretty amazing. You'd have been proud."

"Gods, I'd give anything to have watched that." Hermione couldn't stop smiling even as an uncomfortable silence settled in between them. There was so much that happened the past twenty four hours and Hermione barely knew where to begin dissecting it.

After several moments passed, Draco broke the silence. "I know we had some firewhiskey the other night and maybe you don't want to continue where we left off, so I need to know if this is something you want to try or if you want things to go back to normal."

She considered him for a moment, here in her hospital cot, waiting for her to wake up, forcing water down her dry throat. Draco was the partner she'd trusted for so long now, she actually felt apprehensive about taking anyone else as a partner. He obviously knew what he was doing sexually, he was attractive – far too attractive for someone with his ego, and most importantly, she'd built a friendship from the ground up with him. Yes, she truly wanted to see where this could go.

"I don't want to go back to just friends," she tells him with a small smile. "But, whatever happens should occur naturally. I don't want to have to drink a gallon of firewhiskey in order to share a bed with you again."

Draco nodded, his lips upturned into a small smile. "Excellent, well, don't get too excited to jump back into the bed with me, Granger. You need at least a week to heal and I'm not even allowed to consider touching you until then. Healer's orders."

She groaned. Laid up for a week. Hermione tilted her head back and let herself fall slack against the bed again. It was going to be the longest week of her life, cooped up in this damn hospital bed, missing all of the action of her job. Draco, though, sensing her frustration, reached into his pocket and held up a miniature version of Monopoly. He used his wand to enlarge it and set it up between the two of them on her bed.

"I don't think I want to play this with you anymore," she told him as she accepted the fake money he handed her. "You're a cheat."

"Then maybe you'll finally win a game?"

They smiled at each other over a still-open Monopoly board as Hermione took her first roll. A one. God, she'd never win this game against him.

But she'd really like to spend the rest of her life trying.


End file.
